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The 2014 Martha Stewart American Made Awards Are Finally Here!

We have been extremely busy the past few months planning for a very special event this past weekend at our New York City headquarters. We hosted our third annual American Made Awards and Summit on November 7 and 8. Friday night, we honored our 10 newest Award Winners, and it was an extraordinary event.

I have included my keynote speech below and a gallery of images from the first night. I plan on posting more from Saturday's Summit--a day-long program of informative, lively conversations with industry experts and innovators, and successful small business owners. If you were able to attend the event this year, please let me know what you thought of it. Enjoy!

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2014 American Made Keynote SpeechNovember 7, 2014

I am so happy to be hosting the Martha Stewart American Made Awards for the third year in a row, and this is the first year we are hosting the event at our headquarters at the Starrett Lehigh Building.

This extraordinary building has been our home since 1999, and when we first moved in, our surrounding neighborhood was nothing like it is today. We were pioneers back then, there was no High Line, there few art galleries and restaurants, no Google offices. We helped bring attention to this neighborhood on the Hudson River, and that is exactly what successful business can do for a neighborhood. And it is happening in towns and cities all across our country. Cities like Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland are being revitalized by small business owners and creative entrepreneurs.

Today there are 28 million small businesses that employ 50 percent of today's current working population. And 9.1 percent of those are run by women--who are consistently launching businesses at nearly twice the rate of men. It is projected that female-owned companies will create 5.5 million new jobs by 2018.

Since the start of our very first magazine, Martha Stewart Living in 1990, and with the American Made program, which began in 2012, our company has been celebrating and spotlighting innovative, creative, inspiring, successful makers. It is an honor to recognize these individuals and to help move them forward.

One of the most important things we can do in America right now, is encourage creative entrepreneurs and small business owners to grow and thrive, create new jobs and support our economy. And I'm proud to be part of that.

This year, we had 3,259 nominees to the Martha Stewart American Made Awards in the categories of food, craft, style, and design. I was very happy with the pool of candidates, and we reviewed each and every profile and video submitted to select the absolute best.